Sean Connery, Shirley Eaton and Ian Fleming on the set of Goldfinger
It's a new year and, in many ways, the 60th anniversary of the start of the spycraze of the 1960s.
The most obvious example is the 60th anniversary of Goldfinger, the third 007 movie made by Eon Productions.
The first two Eon Bond films, Dr. No and From Russia With Love, were very successful at the box office. But Goldfinger was a mega-hit. Bond was a thing!
Ian Fleming's novels were popular. In the 1960s, they were best-sellers globally. In the U.S., Fleming's stories got a boost from President John F. Kennedy and Hugh Hefner, the publisher of Playboy magazine.
Bond's popularity exploded with Goldfinger. Today, even hard-core 007 fans can point out problems with the film's narrative. At the time of release? Nobody cared about such details.
At the same time, television also reflected interest in spies.
The Avengers debuted in 1961 on U.K. television. Starting with the show's second year, Patrick Macnee's John Steed was paired with Honor Blackman's Cathy Gale. Blackman left the show and was cast as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger.
Danger Man first came out in 1960. Patrick McGoohan played John Drake, an American NATO investigator.
After one year as a half-hour series, Danger Man was revived in 1964, with McGoohan's John Drake now an agent for British Intelligence (referred to as "M9") in an hour-long show. One of the film editors for Danger Man was future Bond film director John Glen. Bond film cast members Earl Cameron, Burt Kwouk and Nadja Regin show up in episodes.
In the U.S., The Man From U.N.C.L.E. came out in September 1964. You could argue that its lead character, Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn), was co-created by Fleming with executive producer Norman Felton. (The rest of the series was devised by writer-producer Sam Rolfe.) In 1963, Fleming was under pressure from Bond producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to exit the project. He sold his interest for 1 British pound.
U.N.C.L.E. got off to a rocky start in terms of ratings in the fall of 1964. But its popularity surged during the 1964-65 season.
There had been previous attempts in the U.S. with spy TV shows. Five Fingers in 1959 starred David Hedison and Luciana Paluzzi. It only lasted 16 episodes.
By the fall of 1965, other spy shows followed in U.N.C.L.E.'s path, including The Wild Wild West, I Spy, and Get Smart. In addition, CBS imported Danger Man, which was retitled Secret Agent for American audiences.
The irony was that Ian Fleming, who had done so much to launch the spycraze, wasn't around to see it take flight. He died in August 1964, before Goldfinger's U.K. premiere and before The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was seen in the U.S.
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